Toasters

Did you know that this year is the 100th anniversary of the invention of the first commercially-successful electric toaster? (You just never know what you're going to find on my blog, do you?!) 😀 A man named Frank Shailor developed his electric toaster, the "D-12," at General Electric. On the right is a picture of the D-12.

In a blog post last week called Recent Inventions I posted a picture of a Star Wars toaster that would toast the image of Darth Vader on the bread. A commenter posted a link to a Hello Kitty toaster available at Target. Here's a picture of that toaster:

That comment got my wheels turning about what other kinds of toasters that might be available out there. I did some web searches for images and found way more than I wanted to use in this post. Here are a couple of the ones I enjoyed in particular:

Here's a Volkswagen toaster that reminds me of the hippie vans of my teen years and early 20s:

I found this contraption that allows you to write on bread through the use of a mounted hot-air gun.

Imagine finding messages from your spouse on your morning toast — Take Out the Trash!

Among the many designs possible on toast — from objects to cartoon characters to real people — I found this one interesting:

I know that to some, he's the "toast of the town," but others would like him to be "toast." Time will tell....

Speaking of time, I found a toast clock that might fit in with someone's décor....

How about a game of Tic Tac Toast? Two people, armed with peanut butter and jelly could have a battle of early morning wits....

I would love this transparent toaster — I would know just how dark my toast is getting without having to keep popping it up.

The following picture made me think about what toasters might be like if various companies made them.

What if various companies made toasters ... what would they be like?

If Microsoft made toasters ...
Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a toaster. You wouldn't have to take the toaster, but you'd have to pay for it anyway. Toaster XP would secretly interrogate your other appliances to find out who made them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but would buy them nonetheless since most of the good bread works only with their toasters. Of course, if Microsoft really did make toasters, they would likely require an upgrade to your bread.

If Apple made toasters...
They would do everything Microsoft toaster does, but 5 years earlier, and the bread would be non-removable.

If Linux made toasters...
You'd have to hack into it to make it toast both sides. Plus the Linux toaster would only come in parts, user have to assemble the toaster themselves, but the bread would be free!

If Google made such a toaster, it would likely be in Beta for the next 5 years…

If Xerox made toasters...
You could toast one-sided or double-sided. Successive slices would get lighter and lighter. The toaster would "jam" your bread for you.

If Fisher-Price made toasters ...
"Baby's First Toaster" would have a hand-crank that you turn to toast the bread that pops up like a Jack-in-the-box.

If Sony made toasters ...
Their "Personal Toasting Device" would be called ToastMan, which would be barely larger than the single piece of bread it is meant to toast, can be conveniently attached to your belt.

If The Franklin Mint made toasters ...
Every month you would receive another lovely hand-crafted piece of your authentic Civil War pewter toaster.

If Timex made toasters ...
They would be cheap, quartz-crystal wrist toasters that take a licking and keep on toasting.

If CostCo made toasters...
They'd be really inexpensive, as long as you bought a case of them.

If Radio Shack made toasters ...
The staff would sell you a toaster, but not know anything about it. Or you could by all the parts to build your own toaster.

If K-Tel sold toaster ...
They would not be available in stores, and you would get a free set of Ginsu knives with each one for slicing the bread, and all for only $19.95. Call them today at 1-800-URADUMMY. That number again, 1-800....

I know that there are many creative minds and great senses of humor out there among my readership. What would the toasters of some company that you know of be like? Do these pictures make you hungry for some toast? 🙂

quotation...

"Light is custom made for darkness." - Dr. Drew Conley

=^..^= =^..^=
Rob

Why do toasters even have a setting that burns the toast to such a horrible crisp that no one would eat?

If ATT made toasters, they’d give you a rebate for six free loaves of bread when you bought the toaster. And then when you called them two months after submitting the rebate to nicely ask when you could expect to receive your bread, they’d get grumpy and ask why you ever thought you’d get it in the first place!

@Lydia – I’m sure there are a number of people who would love to bite off his head … just as there are those who would like to bite off my head. 🙂 I do have some other thoughts about the Obama toaster, but I’ll wait to see if others come up with them first. 😉

@Dave – I’m sorry, but I simply cannot reveal my sources…. I mean it, I really cannot reveal what I don’t remember. I did a fair amount of tweaking to what I had on hand and definitely added some of my own style of humor. Glad you enjoyed the post.

@Jenny – It sounds as if we share similar experiences with ATT…. If we can’t roast them, at least we can toast them. 🙂

@Barbara – That is a cool one. I have no idea if it actually works or if it’s a designer’s conception of what would be a great toaster. But if it exists, it’s on my “wish list.”

If Verizon made a toaster, you would be guaranteed to get a good toasting in any location. No toasting “dead zones”.

If AT & T Wireless made a toaster, your unused bread each month would still be fresh and available for toasting during other months throughout the year.

If Charter made a toaster, you would have the option to bundle the appliance so that you could toast, make coffee, and fry bacon with the same device. This device would still be overpriced and would be frustrating to have repaired.

A few weeks ago I stayed with a lady who had lived for a little while in the United Kingdom. She told me that when she was there, Pop-Tarts were a new product over there and everyone wanted to try them.

Unfortunately, it seems that British toasters burn hotter than American ones, and since British bread is heavier, the toaster springs have a little more bounce to them. The result was super-heated Pop-Tarts flying through the air — a big safety issue!

Everything you said about the Linux toaster is true, but you forgot to add that you’d have to go to six different websites to gather enough information to build it properly.

HOWEVER, once it was up and running, it would be able to make the toast JUST RIGHT every time, remembering each user’s preferences — including whether the end of the cycle should be signaled with a beep, a light (flashing or steady — you choose the color), ejection of the toast, or “no action.” 🙂
———
If Toyota built a toaster, it would run on very little electricity, work without excessive noise, and keep running for years and years — but it would not accommodate tall pieces of bread comfortably.

If the public school systems of the USA made toasters, they would have a counter to indicate how many pieces of bread stayed in long enough to be ejected when the timer went off, but no matter how long the bread stayed in, the toast would vary widely in doneness. The company slogan: “no bread left behind.”

When I was a kid, our toaster looked an awful lot like the original one pictured on your blague, but without the pretty flowers (and no, I’m not 100 years old – that thing was already ancient by then). It had “wings” on either side which folded outward. You laid your bread on the wings, hinged at the bottom, which folded upward against the elements. It only toasted one side at a time, so once one side was done, you had to open it up, flip the toast around and repeat the process. My father liked his toast well done (I called it burnt) on one side and white on the other. We eventually got a “normal” pop-up toaster. I wonder what ever happened to that thing.

@Emily – That’s funny about the Pop-Tarts in British toasters. Instead of playing Hot Potato, they could play Hot Pop-Tart. (Try saying that quickly five times!) 😉

@Vikki – That’s interesting about the antique toaster your family used when you were a child. I’m posting below the picture you sent me of the “Flopper.” Here’s your explanation too.

Vikki writes, “Here’s a Flopper which is the toaster I was talking about. You can add the term to the post I just left if you like. I described it, but didn’t give it a name. It’s from the 1930’s, so that thing we had was probably 25 years old when we had it.”

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My name is Rob Loach and I welcome you to my blog. People come here for an "instant vacation." You can learn more about me and about my instant vacations, including why my blog is called "ivman's blague," by visiting the about page, where you can watch my TV interview about my blog. My site is thirteen years old, so check out the tabs at the top of this page, subjects of interest to you in the tag cloud (below), and older blog posts (about 750 of them) not on the home page of the blog. Though I am posting less often than at first, there's still lots of archived humor here for you to enjoy!

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